There's something amiss...

Well it's a while since I wrote last, and as there is only 2 days to go (silent scream!) I may not have time to write. This week has been pretty busy. On Saturday, there was an open doors day in Glasgow, so me, my mum and two of my aunts went to the Willow Tea Rooms, the Scottish Heritage Centre and the Art School, then we went to see where my mum and her family grew up before her house was destroyed in the storms of '66, and mum and the aunties had fun reminiscing. Best part of the day for me was going into the pub right next to where my mum's house was and seeing the Stone of Destiny!! Was going to take a pic to show to my French pupils but thought that the concept would be way to hard to explain and if I just showed them the pic they'd be like 'oh, wow, a rock :P'.

Sunday was a day of tidying up and messing about, catching up on X-Factor and watching the second part of Strictly. Gutted that I will miss all of my reality TV in France- hopefully there are plenty of good things on the French box that I can watch huddled up on the sofa on cold winter evenings.

Monday was my penultimate day of work, and then in the evening had a goodbye get together with my uni buds. I'm really going to miss you guys! I've started reading 'The Complete Merde' already (one of my presents from Jennifer) and it's really cool, I had heard of some of the phrases already and had no idea what they meant. Think that will be my 'on-the-plane' reading :).

Tuesday was my last day of work, which was really sad too. It was soo nice, they got me a big bunch of flowers, a huge box of M&S chocs and a pink beret style hat which I already love. They have asked me to send them a pic of me in the beret with a baguette, a stripy t-shirt, some onions and a bike :P. After work Chris came to meet me and I bought a new digital camera, which brings the amount of cameras I'm taking with me up to 3- my Flip (for vids), my webcam (for Skype) and now this one. I think I will have to carry them all in my pockets as my cases are absolutely crammed!

Yesterday was a morning jog with my friend from school, then an emergency appointment at the dentist due to my toothache. He told me I need a filling in one of my lower teeth but that my upper teeth (the ones I thought were hurting) are fine. I need to go get some special mouthwash from the chemist today. Also should refrain from tucking in too much to that big box of chocs.

Just two days to go now, and I feel it still hasn't really hit me. Chris is coming with me to the airport on Saturday- maybe when I'm leaving him behind and heading through the terminal gates that's when it'll really strike home. It's weird, as this week has been all about seeing the people I'll miss, but as it doesn't feel real yet I'm saying goodbye without really feeling like I'm going.

A final note, here's two little ladies I'll certainly miss, although they have no idea I'm going anywhere and certainly no idea what goodbye means.
Merrie is at the top there clinging on to a scarf and Pippin is at the bottom rolling about in her usual promiscuous style. These aren't the cutest pics of them, but they are pictures that show their characters and remind me about all the little things they do that I will miss!

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

I'm sorry I was 5 days late in saying Happy Birthday, but here's a belated birthday message for you, featuring a lolcat! Hope you had a really happy 22nd.... oops I mean 21st ;) birthday!!

Paperwork Overload

Eating: Champagne chocs... yum!
Listening to: You Don't Know Me (Ben Folds, Regina Spektor) love it :)

I am strangely happy today, despite the fact that I feel slightly crushed by an increasing mountain of paperwork. I won't bore you with the details of the various paperworks, but it seems every time I think I've sorted most of it, I find another 3 documents I need to sort out. Current minor crisis is that I didn't get my bank card. Apparently I forgot to tick a box on the application, and rather than just call me and ask or send it back to me, Nationwide decided to destroy it. That's right, they sent me a letter saying 'we have destroyed your application form'. I'm freaking out a little because even if I go in branch tomorrow, get a new application and send it off, is there realistically any chance of it being sorted out and sent back within a week? Because a week is all I have left from tomorrow, as I leave really early on Saturday 26th.

I'm excited and happy though cause my lovely tante from Nice is coming through to Avignon to help me get sorted for a couple of days. Not only will it be great to see her, but I think it will be such a help to have someone familiar with the French bureaucracy on my side! She has been phoning up trying to arrange appartment viewings for me but all the potential colocs want to wait til I'm in country, tant pis. At least I feel I am taking steps in the right direction.

I'm currently trying to clear out my student email because I know they shut it down at the end of September...

...Not much of a blog post as my boyfriend has come round so I want to spend as much time as possible with him before I go!

Not long now

Less than 2 weeks til France and I'm not sure if it's really hit me yet. I'm still waiting for my nationwide card to come through so I can actually spend any money in France without the insane charges I would get with my Bank of Scotland card... really should have phoned nationwide today but I'll do it on Wednesday if it's still not through. Other things I need to do are get some passport photos for my Carte 12-25 and get a letter of recommendation from my bank, but I just haven't been in the mood for paperwork these past few days. I also need to send off my paperwork to the University of Avignon as I'm hoping to do 3 hours a week of French there, but I just received an email from them and I'm not sure I understand it! Ah dear, at least this whole paperwork thing should eventually subside (fingers crossed!) after my first month or so in France. I'll be feeling much better once I've actually got accommodation anyway- people keep saying to relax but sadly I'm a worrying kind of person, especially as I've never lived away from home before.

But like I said, all I do on this blog is complain and I really should be over the moon- I'm going to France for 9 months! I have always wanted to do this, and while I never regretted not taking the opportunity while I was at university and doing Erasmus (I'd have had to have studied law in French and I'm still sure my language skills would not have been up to it) I'm really glad I can pick up the chance now and have an amazing time learning French and living the French lifestyle. It's also really great to be this close to France now after several months in limbo at the beginning of summer- it was aaaages before I found out if I was accepted to the programme or not, and I was considering being an au pair instead because it was taking so long to find out if I'd got in. Even once I knew I got in I had to wait to find out which academie- another couple of weeks- and then there was the waiting for the arrete, then there was the contacting my school and waiting for them to get back to me (they have now). All that waiting is over, and even though there's still all the paperwork and annoying organising to do, at least things are moving, at least I'm actually just 12 days away from life in Provence! I've been reading the guidebooks and it sounds like an amazing area. My school is actually part of the 'petit luberon', a sort of natural parkland with a few scattered villages across it which will be great for autumn/ spring walks and cycles, and hopefully I can live in Avignon and still have the city life with shops and restaurants. I can't wait to visit the Pont, and also the Palais des Papes, because I'm a bit of a geek and love history/ museums, and I can't wait to do some travelling around France. I'm also tres excited about going to Paris in October with my boyfriend, even though I'm practically forcing him to go as he hates flying, but I know in such a romantic city we'll have an amazing time. I was in Paris last summer and have already done the Eiffel Tower/ Arc de Triomphe/ Louvre/ Sacre Couer, but I wouldn't mind doing it all again (especially the Louvre, I only got to spend about 3 hours there last time which wasn't enough!) and I'd love to go to Versailles! And besides Paris I'm really keen on visiting Marseille, Aix, Montpellier, Grenoble and Lyon, as well as going to see my aunt in Nice and fingers crossed there will be enough time/ money during the 9 months to go to Italy, I am desperate to go to Venice! Scotland is technically in Europe but being on a little island is not really conducive to easy transport, so I'm looking forward to living on the continent as I think it will be much easier to travel around Europe from France.

Really what I need is a travelling buddy as I'm not too keen on train journeying and hostelling by myself, and I think besides getting a few days with him in Paris at Toussaint, my boyfriend will be working too much (in Scotland) to be able to go anywhere with me. So when I get to France I need to find a) accommodation and b) someone who's keen to travel! Maybe I'll even meet people who'd like to come visit Glasgow with me on one of my trips back. My lovely city is mocking me just now by being bright, sunny and warm when I have just checked the Avignon forecast for the days I arrive and it's cloudy and wet! Oh well, forecasts can be wrong...

Sorry this post has been rather a cathartic splurge, but it's good to be able to talk about it without boring my boyfriend/ parents to death! I had better go and do some more French though as I read about three pages of my book today and gave up and watched Jeremy Kyle so I think I still have a lot of work to do!

I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham!

I ordered a copy of Dr Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham' and it came through the mail today. I'd never read it before (shock, horror), so spent a childish 5 minutes reading it aloud to myself and pretending I already had my French primaire class in front of me. That makes 4 story books I have to take with me, plus numerous other teaching materials, (wallcharts, maps, stickers, games, cds of children's music etc) as I prefer to be overprepared rather than underprepared, not that I really have the space in my suitcase.

This'll have to be a brief post as I'm volunteering soon- feel like I could do with the next two and a half weeks off just to prepare for France, but since I only work/ volunteer for three days a week I really can't complain! I think next week will be my last week volunteering though.

My learning French goal is not improving rapidly- my days always seem too full to get any French done, yet I never seem to get anything else done either! Hopefully my French learning needn't be too much of a priority now though as I have decided to do French classes at the university of Avignon once I'm actually in France- they're specifically tailored for language assistants, and they're on Wednesday afternoons which, being primaire, I'm told I'll have off anyway. It's another 200e I can't afford just now though! My main worry at this moment is financial. My parents have been fantastic at helping me out, booking my flights, paying for my first weeks accommodation (they're even coming over for a week to help me settle in) but I'm still panicky that my current total 'France fund' is just £750! I get paid just before I go, but I'll still fall way short of the £1500 reccommended by the British Council. It'll either need to come out of my other savings (which I'm trying to keep for a post grad I plan to do after returning from France) or my parents said they'll help me out, but I always feel bad about that, or maybe I'll just not eat for a month :P. Even though there's just two and a half weeks to go, my current attitude is just to wait and see what happens, at least I have my post grad money to fall back on if needs must!

Whatever else happens though I must must must not buy any more stuff to teach with! For some reason I get a real kick out of buying stuff to show to my classes, but chances are I won't even use some of it, and I have way too much as it is in terms of suitcase weight!

Gosh, this has been rather a whiny post, next time I'll need to write some more in terms of what I'm actually looking forward to regarding the assistantship instead of constantly complaining! Anyway I'd better go get some lunch, maybe I should gain a few pounds in advance so that I've got plenty to lose in case my not eating for a month plan has to be enforced!

Three Weeks, Two Cases and a Panic Attack

I have decided today that I love lists. I may not always follow them, but making them makes me feel so much better.


Things I need to do before France:

1. Drastically Improve My French- since I'm no longer seeing my tutors, I have had a fantastic idea on how to improve my French, involving reading a book I bought at oxfam, and noting down all the vocabulary I don't know. OK, so it's not technically my idea as one of my French tutors suggested it, but since they aren't going to read this, I'm taking the credit. The trouble with the French section of the oxfam bookshop is that it doesn't really have any contemporary books in it. I have nothing against classic novels, I just think my French is not really ready for Molliere yet. In fact, I know it's not. The reason I know is that I found the most simple looking French book in Oxfam, bought it, and it has taken me a week to get through three pages. The book is in fact far more complex than you'd expect. It's called 'Claudine a L'ecole', and what I've gathered so far, it's about a girl called Claudine, and she's probably going to be at l'école at some point but I haven't got there yet. It started with Claudine complaining about her town, and then in an early plot twist it turned out that actually she liked it. I think Claudine's a bit of a weird one, as she has an odd passion for trees, and kept going on about the bushes and the grass and the lilies of the valley and how she wanted someone to bring her a shrubbery. That's as far as I've got so far- maybe the fourth page will yield more exciting plot developments yet.

My other cunning plan to improve my French is watching some french films with the subtitles off. Surprisingly I can gather quite a lot about the films, despite understanding around 0.5% of the dialogue, which puts my faith in my ability to read people's faces and actions, but not in my ability to understand French.

2. Pack- It's still three weeks away, but I need to try and get my entire life for 9 months into 25kg worth of luggage so I think it will take a bit of practice. My dad keeps saying '25kg? When I go on holiday I don't even use 10kg,' to which my reply is, I'm not going on holiday, I'm moving away FOREVER. Actually not forever, I'll be back in a month for a few days, and I'll be back for good by July, but it will probably seem like forever as I'll miss my family (cats included) and boyfriend so much.

3. Find accommodation- this is unlikely to happen before I go. I'm already a member of appartager.com, but for some reason all the people who want to live with me are middle aged men. They are probably smartly dressed, respectable, nice, charming middle aged men but nevertheless I'm rather keen to meet people closer to my own age group. In fact, I'm not sure I want to live with men at all. Chris wouldn't like it, and I think I'd feel safer staying with girls. So I've put 'Filles uniquement' on my appartager ad and I don't get any messages at all now :(


Nevertheless despite my impossible to fulfill list I am really looking forward to France, despite being also terrified and really sad to be so far away from my loved ones. But they can come visit me in beautiful provence and we'll guzzle olive oil, frolic in lavender fields and stuff ourselves with truffles... or something like that!